By Jason Rantanen
One of the challenges of working with the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act stems from its legislative history, which is scattered through more than five years of Congressional materials. To address this challenge, Joe Matal, Judiciary Committee Counsel to Senator Jon Kyl, recently published a comprehensive guide to the legislative history of the AIA in the Federal Circuit Bar Journal. Matal's compendium provides both a history of the Congressional discussion leading up to the AIA as well as a roadmap to the relevant legislative materials, linking them to particular provisions of the AIA and explaining how to locate each source. Part I addresses the portions of the AIA that relate to applications before a patent issues, while Part II deals with the portions that apply after a patent is granted. I highly recommend both to anyone who is analyzing or providing legal advice on the AIA.
A copy of Matal's article is available via SSRN:
- Part I: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2064740
- Part II: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2088887
Thanks to Professor Colleen Chien for bringing Matal's article to my attention.